Leaving Krakow I teamed up for a taxi with an English bloke who spoke even less Polish than me. A case of the blind leading the blind as I helped him buy a ticket to Kiev. But it worked both ways, he helped me with my suitcase...fair exchange.
It's a really interesting experience standing at a railway station waiting for a train when you can't understand any of the station announcements (not because of crackly sound this time, just language) and then realise that locals appear to be as frustrated and confused about the time tables as you are. At least I wasn't suffering alone, there was quite an international contingent on the platform......Dutch, Brazilian, Portuguese, and British, and we were all confused. Eventually the train arrived, and having checked it was the right one, I settled down. One stop later, an announcement and everyone gets off again! Much sign language and a helpful train official and I discover that the half of the train I'm in stops here, only the other half is going to Zakopane. So in the pouring rain I haul myself and my luggage up the platform, rboard the train and find a seat.
Once we're out of Krakow we pass through birch woodland, plots pf green, houses set apart in well worked gardens. I want to see more but it's all pretty much shrouded in rain. At one point, when the man sitting opposite me gets off, I change places so that I can travel forwards and see where I'm going...and the train reverses out of the station, so I'm still travelling backwards. I become aware that we're steadily climbing and that the countryside (that I can see through the rain) is gradually changing. Pines and birch trees mix, vast meadows with streams running through them; steep roofed houses, pathways through woodland leading to level crossings; a sudden long view of a plain a nd valley. Cows, tall thin stacks of hay on strange spiked wooden skeletons, electricity pylons (I've seen no evidence of wind or solar power here, unlike Germany) Beehives in an orchard.
Hostel Bristol (yes, I know!) is a vast mausolueum of a place. It puts me in mimd of a miniature version of the hotel in "The Shining" then I realise there are people here, not just ghosts. It must have been quite a posh holiday place in the communist era. It's all brown marble and slightly distressed paintwork. The dining room is huge with marble pillars and chandeliers. My own room is small, functional but comfortable...although the two loos and showers seem to be shared by all the people on this landing. No one here speaks English, although by now I have established a technique that involved me attempting to say a phrase, writing it dow, or pointing it out in my phrase book and a simple mixture of words, written information and mime for response...it seems to work. I discover that breakfast here is extra so book it for " tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...."
When I wake up the rain has stopped and the air outside is fresh and clean, and I can hear the stream next to the hostel flowinf full of it's extra load. I take a walk into town and get my first hint of what lies beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment